the lost world of easter island

Hotu Matu’a and his weary voyagers, upon arriving on Easter Island also known as Rapa Nui, found a subtropical refuge but no tropical para-dise.. An exiled Polynesian king and a small gr

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LOST WORLDS AND MYSTERIOUS CIVILIZATIONS

Easter Island

LOST WORLDS AND MYSTERIOUS CIVILIZATIONS

Atlantis Easter Island

El Dorado

Th e Maya Nubia Pompeii Roanoke Troy

MYSTERIOUS CIVILIZATIONS

Easter Island

Ronald A Reis

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Easter Island

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6 Western Contact and Rapanui Response 62

Perhaps as many as a thousand years before Christopher Columbus left the safety and familiarity of continental Europe to venture west, out across the uncharted Atlantic, the Polynesian king Hotu Matu’a (Great Parent), along with 200 to 300 men, women, and children, sailed east into the vast openness of the eastern Pacifi c Unlike Columbus, however, Hotu Matu’a was on a voyage of discovery, exploration, and, signifi cantly, colonization

Having been defeated in battle and, as a consequence, exiled in search of

an unknown land, the king had little choice in taking to the sea

According to legend, aft er launching two 90-foot-long, 6-foot-deep (27-meters-long, 1.8-m-deep) canoes, which may have taken three years to carve out with stone axes from giant tree trunks, the king and his voyag-ers set out from Hiva (in the Marquesas Islands group), with a coconut-leaf sail unfurled and paddlers straining against the ocean currents and opposing winds Or they may have departed from Mangareva, an island

a thousand miles southeast of Tahiti, in what is today French Polynesia

by a bridge, from which a mast arose A small, thatched-roof shelter vided some protection from the elements As a colonizing venture, not just one of discovery and exploration, the catamaran carried not only ample supplies for a journey of weeks, if not months, but enough fl ora and fauna

pro-to establish a new settlement A 50-foot (15-m) canoe was capable of rying upward of 18,000 pounds (8,165 kilograms), so there was no prob-lem in storing plentiful supplies plus crew and passengers

car-Polynesian

Wayfinders

8 EASTER ISLAND

But the journey now to be undertaken, abundant provisions aside,

was fraught with danger and uncertainty A stout vessel, with a strong

crew having a thorough understanding of marine ecology, not to mention

celestial navigation, was required if the voyagers were to have any chance

of fi nding a new place to inhabit

Yet, Hotu Matu’a, or Polynesians like him, did miraculously

suc-ceed in chasing the rising sun for weeks on end to discover and colonize

a land that is, even today, considered the most remotely, continuously

inhabited place on Earth Twenty-fi ve-hundred miles east of Tahiti, and

almost an equal distance west from mainland Chile, Easter Island, a

64-square-mile speck in the southeast Pacifi c, was, indeed, discovered

and settled Hotu Matu’a, upon sighting the island, was said to have fi rst

circumnavigated the triangular-shaped, cliff -hanging volcanic haven

three times, then, seeing a small beach, landed his founding party at

what is today Anakena

Hotu Matu’a and his weary voyagers, upon arriving on Easter Island

(also known as Rapa Nui), found a subtropical refuge but no tropical

para-dise At the time, though the island was blessed with tall palm trees, of

which there may have been as many as 16 million, there were no mammals

or fruit-bearing trees and no protective reefs Luckily, the voyagers came

prepared, with the tools, food, plants, and animals they needed to begin

a new life, one in which their descendants for 25 to 50 generations hence

were destined to live out in complete isolation—cut off from all other

human contact

MIGRATORY ADVANCEMENT

Th e Polynesians’ ever eastward, island-grabbing infusion into the Pacifi c,

culminating in the settlement of distant Easter Island, would turn out to

be the last leg of a human migration that began 50,000 years ago, the

ori-gins of which can be traced to the heart of East Africa, a half a world

away Beginning much earlier with Homo erectus, to be followed by Homo

heidelbergensis, then Homo neanderthalensis, our predecessors migrated

north, out of Africa, into Europe, through Asia, to as far as the island of

Borneo, part of present-day Malaysia and Indonesia All three of these

early groups died out, however With Homo sapiens (modern humans),

the migrations were even more far fl ung, and, of course, more successful,

since the species survives today to, among other things, read this book

a consequence, migration across numerous land bridges joining most of Southeast Asia, as well as New Guinea, Australia, and Tasmania, became

feasible Homo sapiens moved ever eastward

a few innovators developed some sort of maritime technology, which allowed them to travel and explore off shore “By 40,000 years ago they had reached islands that stretched, chain-like, from New Guinea’s south-east

coast—New Britain and New Ireland,” wrote K.R Howe, in Vaka Moana:

Voyages of the Ancestors “Although these islands were in sight of each

other, there were others far beyond the horizon that were, nevertheless,

Early Polynesians living in the Pacifi c used canoes to hunt, travel, and colonize other islands in the region An exiled Polynesian king and a small group of his followers were possibly the fi rst to inhabit Easter Island, a small piece of land located between Tahiti and Chile

10 EASTER ISLAND

still reached Buka, in the Solomon Islands, was settled 30,000 years ago

and Manus Island some 13,000 years ago.”

By 4000 b.c., when, as a result of the ice age’s end the seas had risen to

their present level, humans were occupying most of Southeast Asia, parts

of Australia, and out to sea as far as the Solomons Th ey had successfully

fur-ther eastward, however, into the vastness of Remote Oceania

Moving on to discover, explore, and colonize the distant islands of the

Pacifi c, following the rising sun in what many today consider the last great

human terrestrial migration, would not be easy, of course An entirely

new technology and way of life, one capable of long-range ocean voyaging,

along with a system of reliable navigation, would be required Given that

the islands to be encountered would oft en lack adequate plants and

ani-mals capable of sustaining human populations, the exploring and

found-ing peoples would need to be more than merely hunters and gatherers,

but, importantly, horticulturists as well Daunting obstacles aside, such

colonization did take place And the humans, Polynesians to be specifi c,

that eventually undertook settlement as far east as Easter Island, would, in

so doing, complete the fi nal chapter of human migratory progress,

reach-ing the end of the habitable world

BOAT PEOPLE EXTRAORDINAIRE

Th e fi rst watercraft to be used by those willing to venture off their coasts,

mainly to fi sh, were undoubtedly raft s made of bamboo or logs tied together

Such raft s were passable for drift ing and steering with the current Th ey

were, however, hard to paddle If equipped with a sail, they could proceed

with the wind, but, importantly, not against it Th ough a good start on the

way to seafaring, the raft s used by early inhabitants of Near Oceania were

almost never employed to seek out unseen lands over the horizon

Th e single dugout canoe, hollowed out from a large tree trunk, off ered

a considerable advantage over the raft It had more buoyancy, and

pad-dling was much easier However, such a canoe had one major drawback—

with a rounded cross section, it was easily capsized

With the invention of the outrigger, either single or double, much

greater stability was obtained, and when such a canoe was put to sail,

great distances could be traversed “Outriggers attached to hulls by booms

provide roll stability,” noted Geoff rey Irwin, professor of archaeology at

the University of Auckland, in New Zealand “When outriggers are lift ed from the water their weight provides a righting movement to rotate them back to the surface; and when the rotation of the canoe hull pushes down into the water their buoyancy restores them to the surface.”

From the outrigger it was a small step, but a most consequential one, to

main advantage of double canoes is their greater capacity for transporting migrants to distant lands, such as those of Eastern Polynesia,” wrote Ben Finney, professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii “Double canoes and double outriggers also avoid the problems inherent in tacking single-outrigger canoes, as their opposing hulls or fl oats serve, depending

on the wind direction, alternatively as balancing weights and pontoons to keep the craft stable.”

When coupled with an eff ective sail, a double canoe, of the type Hotu Matu’a may have used in voyaging east to fi nd a new home, could be quite

eff ective for the long, arduous journey ahead Dr Jo Anne Van Tilburg,

in her book Among Stone Giants, summarized what the evolved sailing

technology meant for Polynesians, as explorers and colonizers, at the time of Easter Island’s discovery “On islands possessing large hardwood trees, sailing vessels evolved into double-hulled, double-masted canoes from forty-nine to seventy-two feet long,” the archaeologist stated “Th eir masts, sails, and steering paddles were proportionately huge A living plat-form straddled the two hulls, a community of people lived aboard it in the same manner they had lived in their land-based villages, and each person had his or her place and task.”

Building and launching such double canoes during the fi rst

peo-ple, carving away with rocks, bones, and coral Of equal or even greater accomplishment, however, was the Polynesians’ incredible ability to fi nd their way among the vast watery emptiness all around them, to, in other words, understand how to navigate their vessels

STAR NAVIGATORS

“A seaman who intends more than a local passage, who proposes to sail

to a destination which he cannot see from his point of departure, needs,

in addition to a reliable vessel, a means of fi nding his way,” wrote John H

12 EASTER ISLAND

was both a man of chiefl y rank and the vessel’s navigator He had

abso-lute power aboard his voyaging canoe and was prepared, at all times, to

make life or death decisions According to Van Tilburg, in her book

Eas-ter Island: Archaeology, Ecology, and Culture, “Navigation was a highly

specialized science, taught to high-ranking and/or highly gift ed men in

derived from the gods and was made visible in profound and striking

ways, time and again, throughout the journey.”

To seek land out of sight, what is known as “wayfi nding,” Polynesian

navigators needed to orient themselves and know how to home in on a

target island before it could be seen Being able to do so oft en involved a

lifetime of learning, along with more than a little bit of luck

Th e navigator’s challenge was, fi rst and foremost, to use the stars and

other celestial bodies for course setting and steering Joseph Banks, an

eighteenth-century sailor on the Endeavor, prowling the South Pacifi c,

noted how acquainted with the stars the Polynesians were:

Of these they know a very large part by their names and the clever

ones among them will tell in what part of the heavens they are to be

seen in any month when they are above the horizon; they also know

the time of their annual appearing and disappearing to a great nicety,

far greater than would be easily believed by a European astronomer.

To zero in on an island, to fi nd land before it was visible, oceanic

navi-gators used several clever and intriguing approaches According to Ben

Finney, writing in Vaka Moana:

Th ese [methods] included looking for land nesting birds that daily

fi sh out to sea at a limited distance from their island, watching for

trade wind clouds piling up above an island that is still below the

horizon, looking for green refl ections of shallow atoll lagoons

pro-jected onto the undersides of clouds, detecting characteristic

disrup-tions in the ocean swells caused by islands, and observing streaks of

phosphorescence in the sea that point toward islands Technically,

these methods can be called piloting techniques in that they are ways

of remotely sensing land.

It is critical to point out that in locating an island, one that may be but a few miles in width, pinpoint accuracy was not required “A radius

of 50 to 75 miles around an island brings one within the area where birds, winds, land-clouds, and the altered swell patterns of the ocean can be used

Island “By ‘expanding’ the diffi cult targets in this way, it was possible ply to steer for entire archipelagos, and then use the ‘radius phenomena’

sim-as one approached.”

Flenley and Bahn go on to note that even tiny Easter Island would be extended tenfold by using the indicators listed above Hotu Matu’a had his methods, no doubt about it

WITH FULL INTENT

But why go at all? Why would Polynesian seafarers choose to leave the island homes they knew so well to venture east in search of lands that

and cultural development of the Pacifi c region is one of the most dramatic chapters of the recent history of mankind,” wrote Andreas Mieth and

Hans-Rudolf Bork, in their book, Easter Island—Rapa Nui: Scientifi c

Path-ways to Secrets of the Past “Overcoming the enormous distances between

the islands and atolls of the Pacifi c called for nautical and logistical skills

conquest of the so-called ‘Polynesian Triangle,’ the central Pacifi c region between New Zealand, Hawaii, and Easter Island, was a matter of a mere 1,200 years.”

Natural catastrophes aff ecting already settled regions (that is, quakes, volcanic eruptions, fl oods, and typhoons) may have driven some to seek refuge elsewhere Overpopulation could have been a factor, with islands already occupied eventually reaching the limits of human sustainability

earth-Trade must have been a compelling factor in many cases “Occupants

of some Polynesian islands are known to have gone very considerable distances looking for raw materials or suitable types of stone for tool-making or tomb-building,” noted Flenley and Bahn Wars could have been a factor, with resulting exile the only way out for defeated popula-tions A related aspect may have been the desire of younger, junior chiefs

14 EASTER ISLAND

When explorers stumbled upon Easter Island, they discovered the moai—large,

upright statues carved out of stone The signifi cance of the moai and how

they were created, moved, and erected mystifi ed scholars and drew many

visitors to the island

to establish new lines of descent on “virgin” islands And not to be counted is the issue of human curiosity, adventure, or simply wanderlust

dis-Central to the question as to why Polynesians continued to move east, occupying island aft er island, out into the vast Pacifi c, even when such islands became fewer and farther apart, is the matter of “accident or com-petence.” In other words, did Polynesian sailors, or fi shermen, simply drift

off course while out at sea and, by accident, “fi nd” new lands? Or did they

go forth on purpose, with full deliberation and intent, on voyages, though perilous and, more oft en than not, defeating, of not only discovery but colonization?

knew what they were doing when they set out on oceanic voyages, and

were always transported to the new settlements argues strongly against the colonization being accidental,” noted Flenley and Bahn “Would off -shore fi shermen, unexpectedly caught by a storm, happen to have not only their womenfolk but also dogs, chickens, pigs, and rats on board as well

transport-ing of complete ‘landscapes’ to new islands suggests organized coloniztransport-ing expeditions.”

While Hotu Matu’a did not know exactly where he was going, he did set forth with planning and intent

For the next 1,500 years, the island Hotu Matu’a, or Polynesian ers like him, settled would come to mystify and intrigue all who encoun-tered it Chief among the enigmas that draw thousands to Easter Island every year are the moai, giant stone statues, nearly a thousand of which exist in various stages of construction Why these edifi ces were created and how they were carved, transported, and erected, and why they were

scholars Th ere is, however, much about Easter Island that still does

Learning how Hotu Matu’a’s descendants coped with the dented challenges they faced, some of which still exist today, may well be a discovery worthy of the initial eff ort the king, himself, undertook

Easter Island is located at one of three apexes that form what is known

as the Polynesian Triangle In the north is Hawaii; at the southeast, New

Zealand; and on the far eastern end, Easter Island Each leg of the triangle

is 7,000 miles (11,265 kilometers) long Th e island is 2,300 miles (3,701 km)

west of South America and 2,500 miles (4,023 km) east of Tahiti It is 3,700

miles (5,955 km) north of Antarctica Th e closest inhabited island is tiny

Pitcairn, 1,260 miles (2,028 km) to the west, where the mutineers of the

H.M.S Bounty settled in 1790 Easter Island is one remote, isolated place.

Easter Island was formed by the eruption of three major hot spot

between various tectonic plates At these points, magma, or liquid rock,

constantly emerges and then solidifi es to regenerate Earth’s surface At

some places, these fi ssures in the ocean fl oor result in hot spots, which

high enough to form Pacifi c Islands

Th e fi rst volcano that would eventually create Easter Island, known as

Poike, erupted approximately 3 million years ago, forming a conical

penin-sula that is, today, 1,217 feet (370 m) above sea level but extends 11,400 feet

(3,474 m) down to the seafl oor Its crater, known as Pua Katiki, is dry, 500

feet (152 m) in diameter, and between 33 and 50 feet (10 and 15 m) deep

mil-lion years before the present It is close to 1,000 feet (305 m) above the sea,

with a huge caldera two-thirds of a mile across Th e cavity is fi lled with a

freshwater bog 36 feet (11 m) deep Rano Kau is, without a doubt, one of the most impressive, awe-inspiring geological sites on the planet.

Terevaka, the youngest of the three volcanoes to confi gure Easter Island, spouted forth close to 300,000 years ago Rano Aroi is its main crater, 657 feet (200 m) in diameter, with a small lagoon Terevaka rises to 1,680 feet (512 m), the highest point on the island

Th e triangular-shaped land that is Easter Island is a result of these three volcanoes erupting and, through a slow, natural eroding process,

“coming together.” Easter Island’s topography is mostly gentle, with deep

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Easter Island is one of the points of the Polynesian Triangle, a region that encompasses more than 1,000 islands in the Pacifi c Ocean Polynesians traveled by canoe to different islands throughout the triangle, which includes New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti, and Hawaii

18 EASTER ISLAND

valleys and numerous hills Small coral formations exist along the

shore-line, but the lack of a coral reef means that the sea has cut cliff s around

much of the island Th e coastline is infused with numerous caves and lava

and Anakena

At 27 degrees south, approximately as far south of the equator as

Miami is north of the equator, Easter Island is considered subtropical,

with a mild climate Between 30 and 61 inches (76 and 155 centimeters)

of rain fall each year, and the mean temperature reaches 69°F (21°C) By

Polynesian Island standards, Easter Island is considered cool

While the land that has become Easter Island began as barren rock

and ash, it was eventually colonized by seabirds As a result, it slowly

greened, with deposits of plant seeds and guano According to Jo Anne

Van Tilburg, writing in Among Stone Giants:

Th e island has an embarrassment of volcanic stone riches: dense,

hard, and dark basalt; black volcanic glass; and porous tuff s, some

stained and deep, rich red of oxidized iron Sunset-hued clouds give

way to a glistening nighttime canopy of stars, then return through

morning mists and rainbows to cast scudding daytime shadows

Rooted in cool, unbelievably turquoise waters more than a thousand

fathoms [6,000 feet] deep, the island’s ragged and rocky coastline is

punctuated with a few small landing spots, a pink-sand cove, and

one large beach.

For Hotu Matu’a and his colonizing party, “Te Pito Te Henua,” or “the

navel of the world” (the center of everything), must have seemed a most

inviting place indeed

THERE TO STAY

how-ever, in one critical respect from the island of today Upon arrival, the king

surveyed a land crowded with trees, a dense forest of large palms (perhaps

of such vast woodlands would turn out to have major consequences for

Hotu Matu’a’s descendants In turn, the eventual total decimation of the

forest would have even greater signifi cance for the island population

The Center of the World 19

But with that day of reckoning still a way off , at the moment of ment, Hotu Matu’a’s fi rst task was to examine the local fl ora and fauna in order to understand quickly what could provide sustenance Because of the thick forests, generous precipitation resulted As a consequence, early islanders were blessed with freshwater from perennial streams and from

settle-the three crater swamps of Rano Aroi, Rano Kau, and Rano Raraku (rano

means crater lake) In addition, water pools oft en collected in the island’s countless lava tubes Th e initial settlers would not die of thirst

Nor would they starve For starters, seabirds and land birds existed

fulmars, albatross, boobies, rails, shearwaters, doves, herons, barn owls, and parrots And, of course, they consumed the virtually unlimited sup-ply of eggs, a protein source that would take centuries to exhaust Birds,

Three separate volcanic eruptions resulted in the formation of Easter Island

The crater of Rano Kau, the second volcano that erupted approximately 2 million years ago, is still visible and is fi lled with a freshwater bog

20 EASTER ISLAND

particularly seabirds, also provided a valuable assist in that they indicated

the location of shoals of edible fi sh

Of the 167 varied creatures found in the waters off Easter Island, the

animal available to the islanders, was, as time progressed, harpooned far

off shore in large canoes built from the abundant palms of the island Small

shellfi sh were also gathered and eaten, usually raw, and crayfi sh and crabs

were a delicacy oft en sought aft er In addition, turtles, seals, and, signifi

-cantly, tuna were available

Of course, Hotu Matu’a brought with him plants and animals he

hoped would fl ourish on the new landfall Referring to settlement of the

RATS AND DEFORESTATION

If, upon arrival sometime between a.d 700 and 1000, Hotu Matu’a,

or voyagers like him, surveyed an island with as many as 16 million

palm trees, how is it that they were all gone by the time Westerners

arrived in the eighteenth century? What caused the massive

defor-estation? Clearly, humans were the main culprits, chopping down,

stone thrust by stone thrust, trees to be used for building canoes,

transporting and erecting moai, building fi res, making carvings,

con-structing houses, and so forth Th at said, deforestation may have

been given a helping hand from an unlikely, though at times a

wel-comed source—the Polynesian rat, Rattus exulans

Of course, Polynesian rats, most likely introduced at

settle-ment, by accident or on purpose, did not actually gnaw away at

palm tree trunks, cutting the trees down with their tiny teeth

What they did, it is claimed, was eat the trees’ nuts, thus

prevent-ing propagation In other words, humans cut the trees down, and

rats prevented new ones from germinating Both factors resulted

in deforestation

John Flenley and Paul Bahn, in their book, Th e Enigmas of Easter

Island, make the following case for rats having contributed to

Eas-ter Island deforestation:

Polynesian Triangle in general, Catherine and Michel Orliac, writing in

Easter Island: Mystery of the Stone Giants, declared: “Th ese sea peoples brought the plants necessary for their food, care, and clothes, along with certain trees needed for their utilitarian and symbolic functions Th e taro, the yam, the sweet potato, and the banana were thus introduced to the new lands.”

Of the animals carried to Easter Island at settlement, the dog seems

a valuable food source So, too, did an intentional or unintentional “guest,”

the Polynesian rat, Rattus exulans, the third most widespread species of

its kind in the world While the wily rodent, with its large round ears,

“Why then, did the palm become extinct?” the authors ask

One answer lies in tooth marks: every Paschalococos nut so far recovered, apart from the fragments from Anakena, had been gnawed by rodents.      Some of the gnawed nuts found

on Easter Island were submitted by Flenley to Dr A.J Stuart

of Cambridge University, a specialist on Britain’s Quaternary mammals, in the hope that he would pronounce them the prod- uct of rat’s teeth He did not He said the tooth marks were more

disturbing, for mice are not abundant on Easter Island It then transpired, however, that the archaeological dig at Anakena had turned up numerous remains of the Polynesian rat, Rattus

intro-duced only after European contact, when it had rapidly ousted the Polynesian rat.

Rattus exulans, it turns out, is a very small, mouse-sized species

Now Dr Stuart’s fi ndings fi t Clearly, the nuts found in the caves

were gnawed by Rattus exulans, which was probably the only rodent

on the island at the time

22 EASTER ISLAND

pointed snout, black/brown hair, and tiny feet would prove to be a useful

source of protein, the negative consequences of its introduction would be

profound It is now extinct on the island, although its “brother,” the

Euro-pean rat, is, unfortunately, abundant

For Hotu Matu’a and his colonizers, along with their descendants for

its means—enough to allow for a signifi cant population expansion as the

centuries wore on Th at was all to the good, for what would later be called

the Rapanui, were, like it or not, on Easter Island to stay Th ey were, in

eff ect, isolated, living at the farthest stretch of Remote Oceania

AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES

Island in such abundance (Jubaea sp.) was clearly related to the mainland

variety Th e Easter Island tree was even larger than the Chilean wine palm,

however, oft en reaching a height of 65 feet (20 m) and a diameter of 7 feet

(2 m) It was the biggest palm tree ever to have existed

According to Jared Diamond, writing in his book Collapse:

Chileans prize their palm today for several reasons and Easter

Island-ers would have done so as well As the name implies, the trunk yields

a sweet sap that can be fermented to make wine or boiled down to

make honey or sugar Th e nuts’ oily kernels are rated a delicacy Th e

fronds are ideal for fabricating into house thatching, baskets, mats,

and boat sails And, of course, the stout trunks would have served

to transport and erect Moai [stone statues], and perhaps make raft s

Indeed, the early settlers of Easter Island made extensive use of the

island-wide palm trees they found all around them Initially, the palm

forests were used for crop production Various vegetables and fruits

were planted in between the palm trees, the latter off ering protection for

the smaller plants According to Andreas Mieth and Hans-Rudolf Bork,

in Easter Island—Rapa Nui, “It [the palm tree] gave them [the crops]

vegetation also protected the soil, as the canopy of the trees kept direct

impact of rain and wind away and thus prevented soil erosion Th e den soils were sustainably enriched with organic substance by mulching

gar-of plant remains.”

Eventually, settlers took horticulture in the palm forests one signifi

palms were chopped off with stone tools only a few centimeters above the soil surface and the leaves and other useless parts were probably removed

taken out and put to various uses Th e remains of the palms, their stumps, the litter—including some fallen-down nuts—as well as the waste from other non-usable plants were burned.”

Among the crops grown in and around the palm forests of Easter Island

aft er settlement was the Ipomoea batatas, or sweet potato, a plant whose

existence on the island has plagued Pacifi c and New World researchers for decades Botanists agree that the sweet potato originated in South Amer-

ere-fore, the only plausible way the plant could have made it to Easter Island

central Polynesia from South America before a.d 700 It was then, in turn, brought to Easter Island by Polynesians at settlement, and thus, according

to Van Tilburg, “the transfer was made by Polynesians aft er a voyage of exploration to the South American coast.” It is an intriguing possibility that Polynesians actually reached South America, returned with the sweet potato to central Polynesia, and then, as they sailed eastward to Easter Island, brought the plant with them

Th us as the fi rst Easter Islanders settled in, they made extensive use

of not only the fl ora found native to the island, such as the palm tree, but what plant life they brought with them, in particular, the sweet potato

Consequently, as in centuries past, a Polynesian life began to fl ourish on

a new island home

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Hotu Matu’a, as legend would have it, became the fi rst king of Easter Island On his voyage of discovery, he had with him six sons As Hotu Matu’a lay dying, he divided the entire island among the six According to Van Tilburg:

24 EASTER ISLAND

Each plot of land was commensurate in value with each man’s birth

order within the family Th e eldest inherited the greatest share of

his father’s mana [supernatural power], the royal estate lands of

Anakena, and the powerful title of paramount chief Th e youngest

son, called Hotu Iti, was his father’s favorite and received the entire

eastern portion of the island—including Rano Raraku [the stone

quarry] Th is legacy acknowledged that Hotu Iti, although outranked

by his brothers, was somehow gift ed.

Th us, soon enough, Easter Island split into tribes, or Mata Each one

of Hotu Matu’a’s six sons founded a main Mata Each Mata, was, in turn,

old-est man who could trace his personal lineage directly back to one of Hotu

Matu’a’s sons

broken down as follows:

❂ At the apex was the Ariki Mau, the king and spiritual leader of the

island He possessed the most mana

❂ Th e Ariki Paka were the aristocrats

❂ Tangata Honui were important elders who advised the Ariki Mau

and leaders of the Ure

❂ Th e high priests were known as Ivi Atua

❂ Th e Paoa were warriors of lower status than the Matato’a

❂ Maori were experts in diff erent arts and disciplines.

❂ And, fi nally, at the bottom of the hierarchy were the Kio Th ey could

be servants, refugees, or even slaves

In eff ect, Ariki Mau ruled all of Easter Island According to Steven

Roger Fischer, writing in Island at the End of the World:

He [the Ariki Mau] was the one individual with the most

aristo-cratic pedigree and the most exalted social position on the island

His person was overfl owing with mana and his sacredness caused

him to be feared and respected His function in society was to ensure

through his very being the abundance of crops and the fertility of the

ground and to exercise his infl uence on animal life Certain religious

activities were derived from his sacredness and he held supervisory control over various practices connected with religion.

For the fi rst few centuries aft er discovery of the island, the Ariki Mau was seen as a living deity and as such wielded absolute power

Eventually, the Mata of Easter Island would coalesce into two major

and they would be of higher social status Th e Hotu Iti lived on the eastern portion of Easter Island Th eir standing was of a lower rank

Each of the six major tribes, or clans, on the island came, in time, to dominate and work a portion of the land in its own way One group would command the most fertile part of the island, thus dedicating themselves

to agriculture Another would work the quarry at Rano Raraku, from which obsidian was obtained to create carving tools A third clan would concentrate on the work related to the construction of canoes Another clan would specialize in fi shing Th us, each group dedicated its energies to one specialty, with an elaborate network of trade ensuring the exchange

of resources Cooperation was the norm, and life, for the most part, was peaceful and good

SACRED CEREMONIAL SITES

In addition to the basic supplies for survival, the original settlers of ter Island brought with them ideas, customs, and religious practices of their central Polynesian culture Chief among them was the construction

are, in many respects, an archaeological phenomenon, with some having required the moving of 300 to 500 tons of stone for their construction Th e Tahai Ahu complex, for example, consists of three structures, with a total

of 30,000 cubic yards of rock and earth fi ll, estimated to weigh 2,000 tons

Easter Island, with distinct clusters around coves and good landing places,

about a half mile apart According to John Flenley and Paul Bahn:

Th ey [ahu] range in size from quite small to over 150 m (c.500 ft ) in length and up to more than 4 m (c.13 ft ) in height, and comprise a rubble core faced with masonry, for which no mortar was used Th e

26 EASTER ISLAND

seaward facades oft en seem to have been placed as close to the shore

as possible and parallel to it, forming impressive walls which seem

to rise straight out of the sea Th ese facades vary from uncut local

stones to precisely carved and fi tted blocks To the landward side was

a ramp, paved with lines of beach boulders and sloping down to an

artifi cially fl attened plaza.

Each ahu belonged to a family group, located on the territory where

markers, delineating clan territory

Th e ahu were also, in a few cases, burial places, or abodes of the dead

Yet this does not seem to have been their original function Most ahu had

multiple roles, serving as social and ritual centers and as a lineage and

Early Polynesian colonizers built raised platforms or altars, called ahu, on

Easter Island Families used ahus as a meeting place for religious ceremonies

and community events and would later place moai atop some of them

boundary marker According to Flenley and Bahn: “Burial seems to have been the exception rather than the rule in early periods of Rapa Nui, since

no early skeletons have been found: cremation was far more common, and elaborate cremation pits have been found behind the central platform at many complexes such as Akivi or Ahu O Rongo.”

In actual construction, the classic elements of an ahu are

❂ a retaining rear wall several feet high, usually facing the sea;

❂ a platform behind the wall;

❂ pads or cushions on the platform;

the inland side of the platform rising most of, but not all, the way up the side of the platform;

❂ a pavement in front of the ramp;

❂ an interior fi lled with rubble

In the square (an open space extending in front of the central form), people performed community, ceremonial, and religious meetings

plat-With some ahu there existed a circular space bordered by stones, where memorial ceremonies in honor of illustrious dead men took place

Th e ahu were clearly major archaeological wonders in their own right

Even modest ahu would have taken months to construct, with, perhaps, two dozen men working full time at the task Yet, as will be seen shortly, of the 313 known ahu, 125 would eventually gain a powerful enhancement, carrying upon their raised platforms the famous moai, large stone statues for which, above all else, Easter Island is known and venerated

Megalithic

Monuments

3

When Easter Island is the subject, it is an image of the island’s moai,

megalithic volcanic statues, that is conjured up With nearly a thousand

identifi ed, albeit in various stages of completion, one would be

hard-pressed to miss them on a 64-square mile (166-square km) landmass

It is the moai, above all, that give Easter Island its “mysterious” patina,

its main reason for study, inquiry, and wonder Just what are they? Why

were they carved? How were they transported from their main quarry

to the island’s northern and southern coasts? How were they erected?

And, fi nally, why were virtually all those that once stood pulled down?

have informed answers to these and related questions Having, for the

most part, solved the “moai mystery,” however, in no way diminishes

their wonder On the contrary, it only enhances it

Archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, who has devoted a good portion

of her professional career to studying the moai, succeeded in identifying

and documenting 887 statues by the late 1980s Of that number, 397 (45

percent) are still in situ, “resting” in their central production center, “their

maternity ward,” at the Rano Raraku volcano Fully 288 statues (32

per-cent) were successfully transported to a variety of ahu, the latter then to

become “image ahu.” Another 92 (10 percent) are noted as being “in

trans-port.” And 47 (5 percent) are lying in various positions on prepared roads

or tracks outside the Rano Raraku zone

rough, hardened volcanic ash While the casual visitor might be excused

in assuming they are monolithic and identical as can be carved, in ality, each one represents an important ancestor of a given clan and is unique, if only slightly diff erent from its fellows.

actu-Carved, for the most part, between the eleventh and sixteenth ries, the moai average 13.29 feet (4 m) in height, have a base width of 5.25 feet (1.6 m), a head that is 4.86 feet (1.5 m) wide, and a depth through the body at midpoint of 3.02 feet (1 m) Th e average volume is calculated to be

centu-210 cubic feet (5.94 cubic meters) Total weight of the typical moai is 13.78 tons (12.5 metric tons)

While a few of the moai were carved from rock other than that found

at Rano Raraku, it is from this long-extinct volcano that almost all have

pub-lished in 1958, gives a vivid account of Rano Raraku, when he declares:

Rano Raraku remains one of the greatest and most curious uments of mankind.      Th e whole mountain massif has been reshaped, the volcano has been greedily cut up as if it were pastry, although sparks fl y when a steel ax is driven against the rock to test its strength Hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of rock have been cut out and tens of thousands of tons of stone carried away And in the midst of the mountain’s gaping wound lie more than a hundred and fi ft y gigantic stone men, in all stages from the just begun to the just completed At the foot of the mountain stand fi nished stone men side by side like a supernatural army.

Th e statue has a length of 65 feet and is estimated to weigh 165 tons (150 metric t) It lies unfi nished on the outer slope of Rano Raraku, occupying

a full, almost inaccessible ridge Anyone who has seen El Gigante close up cannot help but conclude that this moai was never intended to be moved but, rather, to remain as part of the mountain, like a Mount Rushmore

fi gure Today, there is not a crane in all of South America that could lift

El Gigante, even if it could, somehow be cut loose from its mooring El Giante is, in eff ect, an enormous petroglyph

HONORED ANCESTORS

It is believed that the moai represented ancestors, chiefs, or other ranking individuals who held an important place in the history of Easter

high-30 EASTER ISLAND

Island Th ey were “living faces,” the quintessential Polynesian icon, their

purpose being to keep alive the memory of forebears According to Van

Tilburg, the moai were “a reassuringly familiar, straightforward and

clean-lined image which was a predictable, stable, and unvarying feature of the

natural/supernatural landscape for many generations Visually, they were

as a word repeated in a chant, a step repeated in a dance It was myth made

visible in support of the traditional social status quo.”

came to be, with the moai having their backs to the sea, the still-powerful

with the ahu they stood upon, represented the prolongation of earthly

their horizontal platforms around the coast served as a sacred border

between two worlds, as intermediaries between the living and the gods,

Most moai are carved from the Rano Raraku volcano and transported to ahus

located throughout the island Thousands of tourists have traveled to Easter

Island to marvel at the size and details of these unique statues

between life and death,” wrote Van Tilburg “Transitional areas of this kind tend to be of signifi cance in all human societies.”

As time went on, the moai seem to have gotten bigger and more elaborate Clearly, a competition was under way, where independent kin groups from diff erent parts of the island vied to outdo their neighbors

in producing ever grander statues Th is prestige game manifested itself whereby some groups poured all their resources into the creation of one giant fi gure, such as one called Paro In other cases, it was the number of moai placed on a given ahu that enhanced a clan’s stature At Tongariki,

15 statues were erected on a single platform And at Anakena, the rivalry manifested itself with moai carved in distinctive, elaborate designs More and better moai demonstrated the power and organizational capacity of a given clan

Construction of the moai was clearly a group labor, “a volunteer eff ort performed for the promise of supernatural returns; rather like the medi-eval cathedral builder of Europe,” noted Steven Roger Fischer “Major sub-sistence projects in other prehistoric Polynesian societies, such as stone aqueducts, great fi shponds, huge taro terraces, and breadfruit pits were missing on Easter Island Here, all eff ort went into ever more impressive

ahu and Moai.”

Th at said, at least one writer, though by his own admission, no scholar, has claimed that none of the moai were really carved and transported by Easter Islanders at all According to Swiss pulp nonfi ction author Erich

Von Däniken, in his famous (if not infamous) book Return to the Stars,

published in 1972, a follow-up to his even more popular and

question-able Chariots of the Gods (1968), construction of the moai could only have

been accomplished by extraterrestrials! To Von Däniken, it was all done

by “ancient astronauts”:

Th e men who could execute such perfect work must have possessed ultra-modern tools.      A small group of intelligent beings was stranded on Easter Island owing to a “technical hitch.” Th e stranded group had a great store of knowledge, very advanced weapons and

a method of working stone unknown to us. . .  Perhaps to leave the natives a lasting memory of their stay, but perhaps also as a sign

to the friends who were looking for them, the strangers extracted a colossal statue from the volcanic stone.

32 EASTER ISLAND

In addition to being pure nonsense, Von Däniken’s assertions can be

interpreted as being based on a condescending, patronizing, if not racist,

view of Easter Islanders, who, obviously for him, were just too stupid, too

incapable of creating anything like the moai themselves In reality, the

Rapanui did, indeed, construct the moai, led by a highly skilled, effi cient,

and dedicated sculptor class

WORKERS OF STONE

Paleolithic people, working only with stone tools, could never have carved,

transported, and erected a large number of moai is, if nothing else, based

on a gross misunderstanding of what can be achieved with simple

technol-ogy—with lots of time, muscle power, and a good dose of ingenuity It also

fails to take into account that, with little else to do on an island that

pro-vided abundant crops, easily raised with minimum eff ort, islanders had

plenty of time on their hands, and, therefore, that stone carving might well

become a ruling passion

It has been estimated that six men, working every day with toki, or

basalt hand adzes (axes), could complete a 16-foot tuff moai in a year to 15

months According to Flenley and Bahn: “Allowing a thousand statues on

the island, and an estimated period of at least fi ve hundred years of

Norwegian excavations at the quarry [Rano Raraku], it is clear that even a

small population could have achieved this number of fi gures.”

To accomplish the chiseling, a specialized, privileged, master-craft smen

relieved of all other work, with fi shermen and farmers providing their food

needs Island-wide cooperation was required to make such a system work,

and, at least during the image ahu period, relative peace must have

pre-vailed on Easter Island

Using toki, the sculptors would carve out the outline of a moai lying

on its back Obsidian, a glasslike rock that is formed when lava cools

rapidly, is another tool that was surely used in sculpting Aft er chipping

the outline of the statue’s profi le into the quarry wall, a niche was made

around it so that sculptors from both sides could work Hacking away in

what was clearly a cramped space (oft en barely 2 feet), the carvers began

by detailing the head of the moai and fi nished with the hips It was then

that the undercutting began According to Katherine Routledge, writing

was chipped away by degrees till the statue rested only on a narrow strip

of stone running along the spine; those which have been left at this stage resemble precisely a boat on its keel, the back being curved in the same way as a ship’s bottom In the next stage the statue is completely detached from the rock, and chocked up by stones, looking as if an inadvertent touch would send it sliding down the hill into the plain below.”

Getting the statues lowered from Rano Raraku so their backs could

be fi nished, was the next task, one that oft en resulted in broken, and thus abandoned moai Depressed runways or channels in the earth seemed to

to maintain the statue’s direction Ropes, made from coconut and bark

fi ber, may have also been used in “easing” a moai down and into a pared pit where it would be placed into a standing position

pre-Working in the quarry located on the slope of the Rano Raraku volcano, craftsmen would begin building a new statue by carving an outline of a moai

on its back There are approximately 397 uncompleted moai on Easter Island, many of which are still located in the quarry

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“Not till now, with the statues standing thus, did the sculptors set to

hin-der parts took shape, a belt, decorated with rings and symbols, was carved

on the waist Th is little belt was the only piece of clothing the naked statues

wore, and with only one exception all the colossi were male fi gures.”

It was at this point that phase one of the moai creation and erecting

pro-cess was completed By most accounts, the hardest part lay ahead—getting

the moai to their ahu, in some cases up to 12 miles (19 km) from the quarry,

and then erecting them on a platform, with their backs to the sea

DRAG AND ROLL

How the moai were transported to their destination ahu has intrigued

investigators even more, perhaps, than how they were carved Island lore

has it that the statues actually “walked” to the platforms where they would

be erected Under the infl uence of mana (supernatural power), the moai, it

has been claimed, moved to distant sites It was said that the moai walked

a short interval each day toward their ahu

had an interesting conversation with the island’s mayor:

“‘Don Pedro, Mayor,’ I said, ‘now perhaps you can tell me how your ancestors moved the fi gures round about on the island.’

‘Th ey went by themselves, they walked,’ the mayor replied glibly

‘Rubbish,’ I said, disappointed and slightly irritated

‘Take it easy! I believe that they walked, and we must respect our forefathers who have said that they walked.’”

Th is observation aside, the mayor does go on to tell Heyerdahl that his

ancestors may well have used another method, one he called miro manga

erua When asked to explain what that meant, Don Pedro became more

of a realist He drew on the ground a Y-shaped fi gure with crosspieces and

proceeded to explain that it was a sledge made from a forked tree trunk

Indeed, most investigators, including Heyerdahl himself, believe

that the moai were literally pulled from quarry to ahu, using a

combina-tion of sledge, rollers, and ropes to accomplish the task According to

Van Tilburg, Polynesian cultures in general moved large stone objects

in a similar way, using a technique that would be consistent with what

was needed to accomplish the movement of Easter Island moai “In all

cases, the preferred method of transport (with only minor variations)

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was to place the stone in a horizontal position, attach it to a wood sledge and then haul it over rollers and/or sleepers by workers pulling on ropes made of vegetable materials.”

OBSIDIAN—ANCIENT CUTTING TOOL

Easter Island, having been shaped by three erupting volcanoes is,

as can be expected, rich in obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock Th e Rapanui used obsid- ian as a cutting tool, mainly to carve their moai Fortunately, there was plenty of it to be had.

According to the Volcano World Web Site, “Obsidian is a very shiny natural volcanic glass When obsidian breaks, it fractures with

a distinct conchoidal fracture Obsidian is produced when lava cools very quickly Th e lava cools so quickly that no crystals can form

When people make glass, they melt silica rocks like sand and quartz then cool it rapidly by placing it in water Obsidian is produced in nature in a similar way.”

Ancient peoples have used obsidian as a cutting tool for weapons and for ceremonial purposes One observer has pointed out that the making of arrowheads, spear points, knife blades, and scrapers from obsidian might have been the world’s fi rst “manufacturing industry.”

Th e fi rst use of obsidian probably occurred when a sharp edge

on a broken piece of obsidian was used as a cutting tool When ple then discovered that obsidian could be intentionally broken to produce a cutting instrument with a variety of shapes, the “mining”

peo-of the rock began

Lest one think that using rock as a cutting tool is “oh so historic,” obsidian actually continues to be used today—in mod- ern surgery According to geology.com, “Obsidian can be used to produce a cutting edge that is thinner and sharper than the best surgical steel Today, thin blades of obsidian are placed in surgical scalpels used for some of the most precise surgery In controlled studies, the performance of obsidian blades was equal to or supe- rior to the performance of surgical steel.”

pre-Obsidian—still “cutting edge.”

36 EASTER ISLAND

As Flenley and Bahn, in their study of moai transport technology, are

quick to note, it was not so much the moai’s weight that was a problem,

but its fragility Th e Rano Raraku tuff is not very dense Th e key was to

transport the moai without damaging the elaborate detail already carved

on the fi gure Clearly, with protection in mind, the moai could not have

been simply drawn along the ground

Th e use of a sledge placed on roller tracks, therefore, seems to have

been the method of choice in moving a moai from the quarry to its

wait-ing ahu

have worked well for the construction of both sledge and rollers In one

varied possibility, suggested by archaeologist William Mulloy, a statue

would rest, facedown, on a curved Y-shaped sledge made from the fork

of a big tree “A large pair of shearlegs is attached to the fi gure’s neck by a

loop, and as they are tilted forward, the rope partially lift s the statue and

takes some weight off the sledge Th e statue therefore follows the shearlegs,

in a kind of rocking movement caused by the bulging abdomen.”

the required workforce by as much as a third—by applying lubricants to

the track, such as sweet potato, totora reeds, taro, yams, or palm fronds

experiment, organized a group of about 180 islanders to pull a 13-foot

distance

We do not know for sure exactly how the moai were transported It

is certainly possible, if not probable, that during the fi ve-hundred-year

period in which these amazing megalithic monuments were moved about

on Easter Island, a variety of methods were used Once having arrived at

the islanders’ ahu of choice, however, a moai still had to be placed upon its

platform, a task requiring added engineering know-how and skill

HEAVE-HO

had to be strengthened considerably to take the weight of one or more

statues According to Jared Diamond, Easter Islanders were only too

ahu Th ey were upset that, for the most part, archaeologists did not deign

to ask them how it was done In response, the islanders raised a statue for Heyerdahl, without the use of a crane.

sloping ramp of stone from the plaza up to the top of the front of the form, and pulling the prone statue with its base end forward up the ramp

plat-Once the base had reached the platform, they levered the statue’s head an inch or two upwards with logs, slipped stones under the head to support it

in the new position, and continued to lever up the head and thereby to tilt the statue increasingly towards the vertical.”

Not surprisingly, the most dangerous part of the positioning tion was the fi nal tilting of the moai from its steep angle to the vertical position Th e big fear was that the statue’s momentum, in that fi nal tilt, might simply carry it beyond the vertical and tip the whole thing off the rear of the platform Cleverly, to reduce this risk of destroying what had been so painstakingly carved and transported up until now, the carv-ers designed the moai so that it was not exactly perpendicular to its fl at base Just short of perpendicular (87 degrees to the base, rather than 90

opera-Featuring a head on top of a torso, each moai is a representation of a past family member or ancestor in a kin group Although they may look the same, all moai have details that make them slightly different from one another

38 EASTER ISLAND

degrees), the statue’s body when raised to a stable position, would still be

leaning slightly forward and, as a consequence, at no major risk of tipping

up at the front edge of the base the fi nal 3 degrees, using stones, until the

body was vertical

Some moai, when brought to their ahu, were crowned with a “top hat,”

a pukao headpiece made of red slag (a type of volcanic stone) found at the

pukao are believed to represent the hairstyle of the nobility, whose long

was probably raised, one end at a time, on scaff old that was, step-by-step,

increased in height According to Van Tilburg, a team of about 10 men

using levers and the guidance of experts would have been required

Eas-ter Island between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries became central to

Rapanui culture, its very reason to exist, so to speak Yet, soon enough, the

moai, to a man, were torn from their ahu, smashed to the ground A major

societal rupture had clearly occurred

4

from the twelft h century Th e latest year for an ahu with a statue is about

a.d 1650 Th e so-called “golden age” of moai construction, when work became an utter obsession, was in the thirteenth century Th us, for approx-imately 500 years, moai were being carved, transported, and erected on Easter Island

During this frenzied period, the island’s population increased nifi cantly, perhaps to as many as 9,000 (one estimate puts the count as high as 15,000 by the beginning of the seventeenth century) To keep

was needed that would, above all, feed the entire population And this,

in order to maintain a social and natural order, centered on mana-fi lled moai But as Van Tilburg was quick to point out, the price islanders paid for the way they chose to articulate their spiritual and political ideas would be high Sadly, in time the island would become but a shadow of its former natural self

Societal underpinnings began to fall apart when overexploitation of the palm trees (in part because of their use in producing logs for the trans-porting and erecting of moai) manifested itself As an outgrowth of forest depletion, the earth became more exposed, leading to serious soil erosion

Hence, fertile land that had been used for cultivation became ever scarcer

Wild food sources that everyone had been dependent on nearly vanished

According to Felipe L Soza, writing in Easter Island: Rapa Nui: